About Napster

Napster was created back in 1999 by John and Shawn Fanning as well as Sean Parker. Napster originally created under a model that allowed those who wanted to share MP3 files to do so via a peer to peer connection. Napster quickly became the target of federal investigations because of its ability to purport copy write infringement freely.

Napster quickly became the record industries number one target. Napster kept growing in popularity while record labels scrambled. Their only defense was to sue anyone and everyone affiliated with Napster and soon enough, they began trying to track down people’s IP addresses and send them letters threatening to sue them for downloading copyrighted material.

Napster quickly fell out of the limelight yet the name of the service was so synonymous with online music delivery that Roxio bought the brand and used it to legally distribute music online. Best Buy also came to own the Napster brand name that has now become a commercial online music outlet. Best Buy merged the Napster product with Rhapsody to become Napster 2.0.

Napster sometimes get referenced in popular culture. One of the most notable references was in the movie “The Social Network” where Napster co-founder Sean Parker played by Justin Timberlake helps take Facebook to the next level.

How to Convert Music CDs to mp3

There may be times when an individual would like to save their favorite tracks from a music CD onto their computer as an .mp3 file. Additionally once the .mp3 files are saved onto the computer, they can then be re-burned onto a user-created music mix compilation CD if they prefer. When ripping a track from a CD, it must be converted and encoded from the .wav file designed for CD playback to a .mp3 file suitable for playback on a computer or to be re-burned as an audio disc.

To begin the user may use a variety of programs. One of the more popular programs to use for this task is Windows Media Player and iTunes. Along with Windows Media Player and iTunes, the person will also need to acquire some blank music CD’s if they would like to re-burn the ripped tracks. Once ready, the original music CD may be entered into the CD-ROM disc tray of the computer or laptop. Next, Windows Media Player may be opened by double-clicking on the .exe file. The encoding settings must be configured prior to the user ripping the music tracks from the CD.

In order to do so the user may click on “Tools” and then “Options” from the main menu taskbar. Next, the “Rip Music” tab may be clicked on to configure the encoding settings. If the person would like to change the default saving directory that Windows Media Player saves the tracks to, they may select the directory and click on the “OK” button to select it. Other changes one might want to configure are the filenames of the tracks. If the user desires, they may click on the “Filename” tab so that they may edit each track to include the track number so that the files will play in chronological order. The last encoding settings to change if desired are the bitrate settings. The bitrate settings may be changed by adjusting the “Audio Quality” slider located beneath the “Format” menu in the “Options” menu.

When ready, the user may navigate to the “Rip” section by clicking on the corresponding section tab. Windows Media Player should have automatically read the disc contents so the track listing will automatically load and be displayed along with track times, album info, artist info and track numbers. If the person would like to select specific tracks to copy, the may check or uncheck the corresponding boxes next to each track listing. Once finished, the user may click on the “Rip Music” button and the files will be saved as .wma files that are encoded with .mp3 settings. In order to change the file container of the music files to .mp3, the user will need to load the music files through Apple iTunes.

The Apple iTunes program is capable of converting the .wma file containers to .mp3 file containers. In order to do this, the user must launch iTunes and load their music directory. After loading the music, they will need to access the “Preferences” menu where they may change how the file is saved. The user may select the “Importing” tab and choose the “MP3 Encoder” option from the drop-down box to set the file to be saved in an .mp3 container.

Lastly, the user may click on the “Import” button in iTunes to copy the .wma container music files and convert them into .mp3 container music files with .mp3 music settings. The files will then be capable of being played either on a computer or re-burned onto a disc.

What is an mp3

In our never ending attempts to gain more space, especially when it comes to our music, inventors have come up with the mp3 as an option for cramming as much music as possible into a smaller space. Some people may have a difficult time understanding the difference between standard music formatting and its mp3 option. Here are some of the things we need to consider when we choose the mp3 option.

1-Taking it with you. When the mp3 was first thought of, it is unclear whether the inventors realized the full potential that this adjustment in music storage sizes would bring. Moving from cassette tapes to CD’s was already a big improvement for music lovers, but that also entails several discs to carry around, with the mp3, it was feasible to expect quadrupling the music files on the same size CD.

2-Easily accessible. Because mp3′s are actually files, the user may have to rationalize the comparison to wav files, however, that still should not take away from the fact that an mp3 file will only take up about 1/10th of the time and space needed to include it in your library. This makes it a breeze the next time a music lover decides to go hunting for their favorite songs on the Internet.

3-The quality you would expect. There is some controversy as to whether we lose any of the quality between mp3 and wav files, a difference that could probably only be detected with very high quality equipment. To the naked ear and the average player, the difference may not be as easily recognized. The fact that a 32mb song can be reduced to a 3mb song makes it worth our while.

4-More choices, more options. The days of carrying two or three dozen CD’s, in case there is a particular song we want to hear is now over. Newer cars and electronic devices now have the capability of reading mp3 files. Many automobiles also have the ability to play flash drives and we already know how they stack up against a CD. The bottom line is simple, if you need the space, get it in mp3.